APOLLO'S LUNAR EXPLORATION PLANS

Headquarters-Center Relations in Science

While working out arrangements for cooperation with the Office of Manned
Space Flight, Newell and his staff also had to establish working
relationships with the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). In early 1963
MSC's only experience with science had been the visual and photographic
experiments made on the first three Mercury orbital missions.17 These somewhat hurriedly improvised
"experiments" produced some useful data, but mainly they
served to show that people could conduct scientific exercises in
orbit.18 They also showed that both
scientists and engineers had much to learn about each other's objectives
and methods. One result was that MSC acquired a reputation among space
scientists of being at best indifferent and at worst hostile toward
scientific investigations.19 Eugene
Shoemaker, always an enthusiastic supporter of manned space flight, was
"utterly dismayed" by the attitude of the MSC representatives
at the Iowa summer study: "we don't need your help; don't bother
us." This experience led Shoemaker to agree to spend a year at NASA
Headquarters to try to establish a lunar science program; unless someone
concentrated on that task, lunar science might never get done at all,
because "there was no planning for it [and] no program for
it."20

Some of MSC's indifference to science was the predictable consequence of
the formidable development tasks the center faced and its intense
concentration in 1962 on learning to operate in space. But Newell felt
that the Houston center's engineers and managers (also engineers, for
the most part) simply did not appreciate what space science and manned
space flight could do for each other. Houston had no scientific research
under way; the few scientists who worked there were mostly inexperienced
in research and served almost entirely in support roles, providing data
to the engineers. Newell spent considerable effort in 1963 trying to
create a more receptive attitude toward science at MSC.21 One of Shoemaker's first accomplishments after
he came to Headquarters was to persuade MSC to expand its small Space
Environment Division, a branch of the Engineering and Development
Directorate that existed mainly to collect environmental data affecting
the design of spacecraft and mission plans. One geologist joined the
division in 1963, and a team of specialists from the U.S. Geological
Survey was assigned later that same year. Their functions were to set up
a research and training program in geology, develop a model of the lunar
surface for use by the spacecraft designers and mission planners, assist
in the evaluation of lunar scientific instruments, and develop plans for
geologic field work on the moon.22

Lunar surface science, though important, was only part of the larger
question of manned space science, and Newell, looking ahead to the
earth-orbital flights of Gemini and Apollo, wanted to establish a place
for science on those missions as well. The agreement worked out between
Newell and Brainerd Holmes for developing experiments called for the
appropriate manned space flight center (usually MSC) to oversee the
development of experiment hardware once the basic design had been worked
out by the Office of Space Sciences. As OSS saw it, this would require
more scientific competence than the Houston center had. Up to mid-1963
MSC's concern for experiments had been limited to assuring that they fit
into the spacecraft and the flight plan and did not compromise a
mission, a task carried out by an Experiments Coordination Office in the
Flight Operations Division.23 Now, OSS
saw a need to establish what would amount to a space sciences division
at Houston. Discussions with MSC produced agreement that the Space
Environment Division would be the nucleus of the prospective science
branch.24 The Office of Space Sciences
and the Manned Spacecraft Center spent the rest of 1963 defining their
relationship. Newell firmly maintained his office's responsibility for
all of NASA's science programs, while MSC occasionally displayed
reluctance, to say the least, to accept direction from Headquarters.25 In the old days of NACA the field
laboratories had enjoyed considerable independence in the conduct of
their programs, and all of MSC's top managers were old NACA hands. At
times they seemed inclined to insist on running their programs their
way, including the science. But by the end of the year MSC had agreed in
principle to set up a scientific program manager on Director Robert
Gilruth's immediate staff, and Headquarters and center elements were
beginning to work out a description of that person's responsibilities.26

18. For a discussion of the integration
of experiments with the Mercury flights, see Lewis R. Fisher, William O.
Armstrong, and Carlos S. Warren, "Special Inflight
Experiments," in Mercury Project Summary Including Results of
the Fourth Manned Orbital Flight, May 15 and 16, 1963, NASA SP-45
(Washington, 1963), pp. 213-19.

19. The author found this impression to
be rarely if ever documented but pervasive among space scientists and
others interviewed. It seemed to be most persistent in the minds of
scientists who were not associated with the manned programs over long
periods of time; those who worked closely with MSC engineers in
developing the Apollo science program came to feel otherwise, for the
most part. See author's interviews with P. E. Purser, Mar. 10, 1983, E.
M. Shoemaker, Mar. 17, 1984, and H. H. Schmitt, May 30, 1984, and Loyd
S. Swenson's interviews with A. J. Dessler, May 16, 1971, and E. H.
King, Jr., May 27, 1971, tapes in JSC History Office files. Those who
understood the engineers' problems and accepted the manned lunar landing
program as the driving force of the entire space program tended to be
more sympathetic. Scientist-astronaut H. H. Schmitt felt the scientists'
expectations of the engineers were unreasonable: "look what they
[the engineers] were trying to do, for crying out loud: they were trying
to land on the moon! . . . [As late as 1968] there was not an engineer .
. . who could prove that the lunar module was going to be able to fly to
the moon [land and return]." (Schmitt interview.) During Mercury,
the many foreseeable (and unforeseeable but expected) problems of
developing spacecraft and operations caused engineers to be intolerant
of any exercise not essential to the lunar landing that might in any way
imperil the crew or the engineering and operational objectives of a
flight.

24. Fryklund to SD/Deputy Director,
"Memo from J. M. Eggleston About a Facility at MSC to House the
Space Environment Division," July 24, 1963; Newell to M/Assoc.
Adm., "Facility at Manned Spacecraft Center for the Space
Environment Division," July 31, 1963.